Quotations are a recurring theme in Andromeda's pathos and mystique. As the show takes place in the far future, it regularly refers back to both real and fictitious persons to reveal the dramatic tragedy in the history of civilization. For example, the eponymously named Nietzschean people habitually cite the social critic of their namesake, Friedrich Nietzsche, but also refer to the important personae that succeeded him in future eras. This fusion builds a surrealist, if occasionally tenuous, connection between reality and speculative fantasy, making accurate quoting of the series an elaborate exercise.

Every episode commences with a quotation from an influential figure or publication in the Andromeda universe, setting up an ironic context for the plot to follow. It is a briefly animated sequence. White text fades in line-by-line from a completely black background, set to dramatic fanfare. The year of the quote is usually given and is abbreviated either as CY (Commonwealth Year) or AFC (After the Fall of the Commonwealth). Adding to the glamour of the scene, the author is sometimes labeled "Anonymous" or only the name of the work is given. While the opening quote may allude to works that exist in real-life, it is never credited to a real person.

Since the opening quotes are integral to the series, efforts have been made to format their display on this page as they are presented in the show. Efforts have also been made to link when a character quotes another figure in Wikiquote, where appropriate.

"Here's everything I know
about war: Somebody wins,
somebody loses, and
nothing is ever the same again."

Admiral Constanza Stark,
CY 9784

Tyr: And when the Magog unleash their dreaded bouncing ball attack, we'll make them rue the day.

Dylan: I want Andromeda bucking like a drunken Vedran with a Nightsider on its back"

Beka: Sounds like my last date.

Dylan: You can tell us about that later.

Tyr: [to Dylan] Work as a team? With them? They're amateurs - children! And you? You're an anachronism. You haven't the first idea how unforgiving this universe has become, and I will not allow you to learn at my expense!

Tyr: If the radiation is affecting me, then what do you suppose it's doing to Trance? To Harper? To you?

The Heavens burned, the stars
cried out
And under the ashes of infinity,
Hope, scarred and bleeding,
breathed its last.

Ulatempa Poetess
"Elegy for the Commonwealth"
CY 9823

Rev: While I admit the universe does have a sense of humour, I doubt very much that this is a joke.

Harper: Note to sculptors - Statues of me should look, I dunno, wise, concerned. I suggest posing me with a soldering wand over my head like a sword.

Tyr: You know, I can cook, too. You'd be surprised at the skills you acquire as a mercenary.

Tyr: My people have a legend about the Battle of Witchead. They say that the Nietzschean forces arrived here with overwhelming numbers. Their victory seemed assured. But then, in the critical hour, the Angel of Death appeared, summoning forth the Fires of Hell. The Nietzschean fleet was struck down. Crippled. Their glorious victory turned to ashes.

Beka: You knew all along?

Tyr: [to Dylan] I've never seen an angel before.

Tyr: I let my own survival outweigh the survival of an entire people.

Dylan: that's a very Nietzschean thing to do

Dylan: God bless the Nietzscheans, where would the Commonwealth be without them?

We say atoms are bound by
Weak Attractions.
Why not admit the Truth:
The Universe is held together by Love.

Michio Von Kerr,
Wayist physicist,
CY 9942

Dylan: I like them.

Beka: Yeah, but you like everyone, even people who try to kill you... especially people who try to kill you.

Harper: It's a teleporter… It scans you, destroys you, transmits you through the projector, and then rebuilds you from the particles up. Hilarity ensues.

Beka: I think Mr. Heisenberg would object.

Beka: Careful, Harper. That is one of Trance's plants.

Harper: I know.

Beka: She loves them.

Harper: I know.

Beka: She gives them names.

Harper: Trust in the Harper, the Harper is good. It goes in here... [Plant disappears] ...and it comes out there. [Plant reappears and explodes]

Beka: I believe she called that one "Walter".

Dylan: [to Rommie] When I touch you, do you feel me, or do you measure the pressure of my fingers against your skin? When I speak, do you hear me, or do you interpret an acoustic wave? I can't be objective about this, I'm not a machine.

Hohne: I must say, the prospect of tearing you apart particle by particle and re-assembling you on a ship 300 years in the past is quite exhilarating. We admire your devotion to science.

Tyr: I'll teach you rule Number 1. You never aim a gun at someone unless you intend to use it.

Hanno: Be careful. I might live up to your expectations.

Tyr: Or, you might not live at all.

Beka: Your entire crew has an ulterior motive. Rev Bem wants to use your Commonwealth to spread his faith. Harper is in lust with your ship. Tyr is always plotting something, and God only knows what the purple one is up to. Does it really surprise you to find out that I'm no different?

Tyr: What didn't kill him? We've got stab wounds, laser and radiation burns, this appears to be some sort of residual neurotoxin. And these pinpoint wounds, I've never seen anything like them.

Beka: Weird. Perseids can be annoying, but this is just ridiculous.

Rommie: Harper, I had no idea you were such a cunning linguist.

Rev: You need the one thing that all of your knowledge cannot provide... Wisdom.

Harper: Wisdom. Great. Show me the yellow brick road, Mr Wizard. How do I get wisdom?

Rev: Let go, Harper. Let go. Give over to The Divine. All that you are. All that you have. Including your pain. Calm your breath. Repeat. My pain belongs to the divine. It is like air. It is like water.

Harper: My pain belongs to the divine. It is like the air. It is like the water.

Rev: Good. Again.

Harper: My pain belongs to the divine. It is like air. It is like water. It's like a freakin' freight train running through my brain. You sure this works?

Rev: Harper. Think of hunger. Think what is must be like to go days, even weeks without food. Now, imagine what it would be like to know that in the midst of that starvation, you could eat, feast, satiate your hunger. But only by killing the people that you love. That is my pain. It is with me each day. My pain belongs to the Divine. It is like air. It is like water.

Tyr: I took it up because a former employer of mine appreciated fine dining. When he refused to pay me for one of my jobs, I prepared him a Tirimisu laced with Strychnine. As I recall, he quite enjoyed it...for precisely twelve seconds.

Trance: Umm, hi, guys, this is Trance. Umm, I just... You know how sometimes things happen that you can't quite predict and sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not, well, this is one of those "not" times. Help.

Dylan: People are dying. We have to do something.

Gaharis: Fine. Then lets find Ferrin and put one [bullet] through his head. Problem solved.

Dylan: You see, this is why I am in charge.

Lawyer: In light of his mercy, do you have anything to say to us?

Dylan: I think we're all a little tired of my name, rank, and serial number.

Trance: There are all kinds of futures! I can...anyone can forsee any number of possibilities, all of which are constantly diverging. Contingencies arise, imperatives vanish, and all the while we tread our way through chaotic uncertainty never knowing which of hundreds of possible realities we'll find ourselves in.

Dylan: Trance. Which way?

Trance: Left.

Trance: There are 1,342,063 others [possible futures] and some of them, some of them are really great. There's even the mathematical possibility that everything will turn out perfectly.

Dylan: Can you control that?

Trance: No. Life is chaos. Chaos is life. Control is an illusion.

Dylan: [Reading from Trance's report about the mission] "I looked for you, I found out where you were, I traveled to where you were, and I got you out." That's your entire report?

Dylan: You know, Rev, there are some words that should never trip across the tongue of a Magog, and "suck" is one of them.

Rev: I'll make a note of that.

Rev: Give me the strength to follow the path. To give and not to count the cost. To struggle, and not to heed the wounds. I am the darkness become the light. I am the darkness become truth. I am the darkness become The Way.

Slaver: Wayists and their Books

Slaver: The Talmud, the Bible and the Lancer Counter-insurgency Manual on the same shelf. Very eclectic

Dylan: Well, here's the happy groom now. I feel like I should have prepared a toast.

Beka: I think I've got one: Here's to Gabriel. Be nice to Rommie, or I'll rip your head off.

Rommie: I killed him, Dylan. I loved him, and I killed him. [Crying]

Dylan: You had no choice.

Rommie: No, I didn't. Because I'm a warship, and warships only know how to do one thing, and that's kill. We don't have hearts. We don't have empathy. We're killers. We're attack dogs. And I'm afraid. The Balance of Judgment went insane, the Pax Magellanic went insane, and I don't want that to happen to me.

Dylan: You're forgetting something. The Balance of Judgment had no captain, no crew. The Pax lost her captain. Why do you think warships have captains in the first place? I'm your heart, Rommie. I always will be.

Rommie: [Calming Down a bit] These physical reactions. I didn't know Harper was so good.

Tyr: No one's reached Tarn-Vedra in 300 years, and better pilots than you have died trying.

Beka: There are no better pilots than me.

Rev: If the universe is a manifestation of the Divine, could not the slipstream be the very mind of God?

Dylan: Well, if that's the case, then I'm afraid God had a seizure and forgot all about Tarn-Vedra.

Beka: And here comes God's little brain surgeon.

Harper: Did you know that 82% of people on prison planets are Flash addicts?

Beka: Y'know what? They tell you that kind of stuff just to scare you.

Harper: Sure, to scare you out of killing your neighbors.

Beka: Is that an order, Captain? My Captain? Oh, I forget. Actually, you're not a real Captain, are you? There's no High Guard. There's no commissioned officers. Who around here is an actual Captain? Don't, don't, don't tell me. Let me guess. It's coming to me, It's coming to me. Let's see, that would be me.

Trance: Sometimes you just have to allow people to make the mistakes they need to make.

If we do not live another day,
say this over our pyre:
They died like High Guard Lancers
With their faces to the fire.

Regimental Hymn of the
13th Imperial Lancers
CY 4233

Rommie: I deployed Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Dylan: How are the lads?

Rommie: Efficient, as usual. They drove off the first wave of the Magog assault ships.

Dylan: Yeah, but the Magog can always send more. Magog suck.

Andromeda: Well, on the bright side, the Worldship was heading towards the known worlds anyway, before you just didn't know about it. At least this way, you can face it head-on.

Beka: That was such a warship thing to say.

Rommie: Twenty worlds, joined into a single structure, manipulated by artificial gravity and powered by an miniature sun. I guess it's true what they say: No matter how powerful you are, there's always someone bigger and stronger than you – I just never thought it applied to me.

Andromeda: Say it won't happen again. You have to promise to me, Beka, that when this is over, I will either be heading home with a crew aboard, or not at all.

Rommie: Triagonal, prismatic, quartz crystal. Trace elements of vanadium, chromium, manganese, and cobalt. Eighty-two-point-two-five grams. I wonder how many of these fake Hearts are out there. I lost count at three.

Dylan: You never lose count of anything. I mean I assume you could tell the difference the whole time.

Rommie: Of course. Harper is sweet, but he still believes pretty much anything I tell him. (as if to Harper) Oh, I'm sorry. I may have a brain the size of a planet, but I can't tell the difference between one pretty rock and another.

Dylan: The fact is, even in the old days, fully loaded, crewed and armed, the Andromeda was only an even match for a Pyrian torchship. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, we’re not fully loaded, armed, or crewed, and the Pyrians have had 3 centuries to improve their technology.

Beka: …Not the best pep talk you’ve ever given.

Dylan: Oh, you want a pep talk. Okay, uh, do your jobs, don’t screw up, and we’ll get out of this alive… Maybe.

Trance: (to Hsigo) I know this may be a stretch for you, but think. You're twice as big as me, and you look pretty scary, but I'm still standing up to you, so either I'm crazy, or I am really, really dangerous. Would you like to guess which? … I didn't think so.

"To a god, a wall is but a line on a page. We are all naked, seen beyond seeing."

Wayfinder Hasturi, aka "The Mad Perseid", 217 AFC

Charlemagne Bolivar: There are at least three good reasons you shouldn't let the Sabra-Jaguar Pride join your new Commonwealth: We are renowned for our treachery; we are at war with the Drago-Kazov Pride; and we will constantly remind you of your genetic inferiority. Now, here's the upside: We are renowned for our treachery; we are at war with the Drago-Kazov Pride; and, did I mention, we command the third-largest fleet in the known worlds.

Dylan: And, in the case of an emergency, the ship can be piloted from the gunnery nose.

Charlemagne: Emergency? You mean in the event that the Command Deck crew is reduced to a fine red mist and splattered across the walls in a bloody mural?

Dylan: That would qualify, yes.

Höhne: Fascinating! And do such emergencies happen with a degree of frequency, or are they a rare occurrence?

Tyr: What would you like, Jaguar?

Charlemagne: The usual: Hundreds of grandchildren, utter domination of known space, and the pleasure of hearing that all my enemies have died in terrible, highly improbable accidents that cannot be connected to me. And you?

Spiral, spin, ride the whirlwind.
Knowing when the drumming stops,
There'll be no second dance.

- Ulatempa Poetess, "Rhythms", CY 9825

Harper: I don't believe in destiny. I don't even believe in density, except in the heads of Perseids – it's a compliment – I believe in Seamus Zelazny Harper. I cogito, therefore I sum, and I sum to cogito that damn machine right out of existence. Capice?

You can't outrun Death forever,
But you can make the bastard work for it.

- Major Korgo Korgar, "Last of the Lancers", AFC 32

Ferahr: It wasn't me, I swear!

Dylan: It wasn't you who did what?

Ferahr: What do you mean?

Dylan: I haven't even told you why I'm angry!

Ferahr: Then why…?

Dylan: Ogami mercenaries. Big, mean, and ugly. Who sent them?

Ferahr: Uh… lemme think… uh, I know… It wasn't me, I swear!

Rommie: I can pick up galvanic skin responses and respiration changes. I can also analyze pupil dilations in real time, which makes me a walking lie detector. So, tell me the truth, or I'll turn the bones of your hand into calcified gelatin.

Dylan: How do we get people to stop believing in a myth they've believed in for centuries?

Trance: By getting them to believe in that other myth.

Dylan: What's that?

Trance: The one about the High Guard captain flying around the universe, making allies, restoring the Commonwealth.

Dylan: Oh, I don't think they'll ever believe in that one.

Dylan: Anyone can have their cake, and then eat it. The real trick is eating your cake, and still having it. It's a common mistake.

Trance: We did. You could even say we had our cake outside of the box and ate it too.

Tyr: I have faith in nothing but this: when the Universe collapses and dies, there will be three survivors. Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches, and Dylan Hunt - trying to save the cockroaches.

Tyr: I once told Dylan that his mission to restore the Commonwealth is nothing more than an excuse to shape the Universe according to his will. It is. But, in the past two years, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, perhaps I have come to... prefer that shape?

Tyr: We know – Your willingness to defy the universal odds is a disease that, apparently, we have all contracted.

Trance: Are we still outside the box?

Dylan: Trance, we're so far outside the box, we can't even see the box.

Tyr: The AIs are machines – they should do as they're told, or be discarded as defective.

Rommie: They're not machines, Tyr, they're sentient beings, soldiers.

Tyr: Then perhaps Milla has a point. Perhaps the Commonwealth did treat their AIs as slaves. But you would know better than I.

Dylan: I can't take the risk that you'll fall apart under pressure.

Tyr: That would be a mistake. This fellow has already taken it upon himself to perform a dangerous task – not because he was commanded, but because it needed to be done. And, in the end, that's the only test that matters – the test of will… You're a machine. I can't believe I just said that.

The universe is a dangerous place. But in our future my crew and I fight to make it safe. I am Dylan Hunt, captain of the Andromeda Ascendant and these are our adventures. - Introductory Sequence, narrated by Dylan

The loyal heart
Has hidden treasures.
In secrets kept,
In silence sealed.

Commander Sing Bex,
"The Art of Secrets".
Approx. CY 2575

Harper: Wait a minute, how come I get to go for a change?

Dylan: Because I want you with me.

Harper: This is something shady, isn't it?

Rommie: The Commonwealth is still hailing us, and they're mad. They say this is the last warning.

Tyr: That's what they said five "last warnings" ago.

Beka: They're waiting for authorization. God bless bureaucracy!

Harper: [speaking of a mythical vase] I mean, when I was little, my mom told me that it was so powerful that nobody could be trusted with it, not even Vedrans. Weren't you at least a little tempted to put it together and see what it did?

Harper: So, uh, the vase. It doesn't do a thing, does it? It's worthless.

Dylan: It's a symbol. Zeus and Abelard believed that it would bring them power. But to me, it represents the highest confidence in faith that we all put in the Commonwealth.

Harper: Well that's good. Cuz, three people murdered, one in jail collecting dust, and another one on the run with his gun in the sun for all eternity. A lot of time and energy wasted and all for a worthless hunk 'a glass... It is worthless... right?

Dylan: Did I say it was worthless? No. It's priceless. And isn't that the value of all dreams?

The Rabid Dogs of Gallaphron
Can be trained to drool
At the ring of a bell.
Doesn't stop them from biting.

Karlos El Greeta-Stirra,
"Reflections of Rim-Salt", CY 4389

Angelika: Once you've lived an extended period of doing without, you never take having for granted. Once you've crawled on your stomach for what seemed like days silting for water, once you've lived with so much pain... You get to close to death, you get focused on what you want. Come on, Dylan. When's the last time you lived without?

Dylan: Well, I uh... I had 303 years once, frozen in a black hole, doing without life or food.

Oderic: You know, if you weren't so intensely self-absorbed, you'd realize that all of life is a balance between the emptiness of eternity and the need to make art to remind ourselves we were here.

Tyr: I had an epiphany like that once. Then I mercilessly beat someone until it went away.

Dylan: [sarcastically] Oh well you know me with percentages, Rommie. I like to take a big gamble every day because I might be walking around lucky and not even know it.

The moth wants a star
The night wants tomorrow
The King wants what's far
Outside his sphere of sorrow

Tales of Queen Kysella, CY 5647

Trance: Even a small light dispels the darkness. Shine on, Mezmer. Time has come to say, "hello and goodbye."

Beka: You know, ever since we reestablished the Commonwealth, I've been wondering; is it really necessary that we risk life and limb every time somebody gets in trouble?

Rommie: We're the good guys, Beka. We fight the bad guys.

Harper: Trance, no offense, but I think we all remember what happened the last time you tried to pilot the slipstream. You took us back 300 years in time, into the middle of a humungous space battle where we, uh, fixed the course of history…

Harper: [to Rhade] You give me a corpse from down in deep freeze, and I give you a worthy Go partner, with all the knowledge and memories I could dig up or extrapolate... You're kinda creepy, you know that?

Rhade: Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves.

Rhade: History will judge me a traitor for what I am about to do, but if he fails, if Dylan fails, imagine how they'll judge him.

"The universe is perfect.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it,
you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it,
you will lose it."

Notes to Odo Chan,
CY 9191

Gaiton: He who maps it, owns it.

Rommie: It is good to be smart.

Harper: Not to mention hot.

Harper: I wonder if they still think they're alone in the universe.

Dylan: If they do... then they are very, very lucky.

Rommie: If they're such an immature society, why don't we simply reprogram them?

Beka: Reprogram them?

Rommie: Yes, within minutes I could update their technology by at least a thousand years.

Dylan: [alluding to Adam Smith] Yeah, uh huh, I'm afraid that would be a bit overwhelming. It's a little hard to upgrade their hearts or their minds. Unfortunately that takes time and the guidance of an invisible hand.

Beka: Guidance? Dylan, you make them sound like children.

Dylan: Well they are children. [Beka looks at him] For the most part they have no idea how dangerous the universe is.

Beka: Then it's the universe that needs to be reprogrammed.

Dylan: Why chase a myth when there's still so much to learn about our own world?

Tori: Well, look up there. [at the sky] Isn't the best way to learn about our world understanding its place in the universe? We have no idea whether we're alone or part of something too... remarkable and vast to even imagine.

Dylan: Maybe we are alone. We still haven't proven that there's life out there.

Tori: I don't need a mathematician to tell me the universe is designed for life.

Semel: And that's where Tori and I part company. She's a hopeless romantic believing this myth that we "sprang from aliens." I rely on what's known.

Beka: [with affection] That we're alone?

Semel: That we have each other. That's my sense of hopeless romance.

Tyr: [to Gaiton] I am so very sick of you and every Nietzschean like you. I'm sick of your rancid stink of failure and inferiority. I'm sick of your souls that have grown so stale.

Gaiton: It is only a mask to hide a sweeter purpose.

Gaiton: Oh to be all powerful, traveling slipstream in total confidence, no fear of disaster or detection. Remarkable, our people created this. The detail and beauty.. it's science, art, and poetry unified. Our people created this. And yet I can't even recognize myself.

Tyr: There you are. There you are, reflected in the mind of Drago Musevni.

Gaiton: How could I have convinced myself... how could I have let them convince me that he was just some rich old man?

Tyr: He was a poet... a scholar, a magnificent warrior. He was a living god.

Gaiton: What happened to us?

Tyr: Time happened to us. Time changed the universe! But, Gaiton, if the ancestors could do that, you and I... we can change the universe again, if we will it.

"We all wear the twin masks of emotion,
Happy or sad, haunted or hunted,
You choose the mask, you choose the risk.
You choose your own poison."

Last words of Plethe the Pirate CY 3902

Tyr: They are a confederacy of idiots awash in a garbage system. They even shoot lethal garbage at each other, that's what hit us, that's all they have.

Tyr: You're searching for water, while you're drowning in the depth of the sea. Your only love is enlightenment. Love, desire, enlightenment, revenge... these are not emotions, simply traps to ensnare your will.

Monk: We have long ago learned to overcome our emotions.

Tyr: But the will to overcome an emotion, is merely the will for some other emotion to triumph.

Monk: What does this mean?!

Tyr: Uh.. enlightenment... is not found in spiritual leaders or in [shrugs] meditation. Take care of your followers. Enlightenment will find you.

Monk: [bows awestruck, and leaves with his brethren]

Tyr: Anything to be rid of these clowns.

Harper: I gotta hand it to ya, boss. Nice performance. You out-conned a con-artist. You played the love-struck captain, the zealous defender of her honor, even the betrayed friend, and still... you completely fooled her.

Tri-Jema: Citizens can lose faith more quickly than anything else, especially when their belief is manipulated; when their opinions are shaped through fear; fear for their future. Then they listen to men with quick fixes.

Dylan: Not much reason goes into some people's reasons, eh? Except that they just want what they want.

Andromeda: Harper, why don't you find yourself a nice girlfriend.

Harper: I tried building one but she doesn't want me. And because, yes, the universe is big, but finding one Mrs. Harper, let alone two...

Harper: Wow. Except for waking up next to a certain satisfied android, now I've seen everything.

Aurelia: Unmapped... unwelcomed... it is good to fear it.

Rhade: You're an embarrassment to all Nietzschean prides.

Tyr: I am the reincarnation of Drago Museveni.

Rhade: The progenitor would not shoot a blind prophet. You are what's wrong with the Nietzschean race... selfish, self-absorbed, unaware of your own limitations... your career will end here. I will end it.

Beka: Hmm. King of the Nietzscheans, and you still want more.

Tyr: Not more, Beka. Everything.

Trion: This is a Commonwealth vessel. You are treading dangerous ground.

Dylan: That's how I get my excerise.

Rommie: You are having entirely too much fun, Captain.

Dylan: Breaking on to a Commonwealth ship without detection? Disabling without killing? I feel like I'm back at the Academy.

Dylan: Hope is everything, Rhade. Without it there's no reason to live.

Rhade: Then today is your lucky day. [Gets him in a headlock] I hate the hope that you brought me.

Dylan: You give me too much credit.

Rhade: It's always been about you. [Throws him into a table]

Dylan: Okay, let's play. [Hits Rhade] You can't hate hope. [Hits him again] You can hate me. [Hits him again] But you hate yourself [hits him again] more. You know why? Because you failed. [Hits him again] We all did. Failed. [Hits him again] Four years. Four [hit] years [hit] of my [hit] life. [Rhade falls to the floor]